Cycling Confusion

[Ih3artfish]

Hey everyone,

I'm completely new to fish keeping, but I've been reading these forums over the last couple of weeks to help me understand what I need to do to set up my first tank.

It's been so useful, and everyone's been really helpful! I've planned to get everything I need to start cycling my new tank this weekend (ammonia, test kit, substrate, plants etc) but a friend told me I don't need to cycle the tank, instead I should just add something like this starter kit and this tap water conditioner to the water.

From everything I've read on here, I feel like I should follow the Fishless cycling add and wait method, like I had intended to do at the beginning. Is that the right thing to do?

I'm just a bit confused, my friends keep offering me advice about fish keeping, but I don't know if I should follow it or not!

 

[gilaesther]

Do not listen to your friend. Fishless cycling is far more humane to the creatures you're going to be responsible for. It may take more time until you can get fish into your aquarium, but it will be well worth it to avoid ammonia and nitrite poisoning!

 

[fluttermoth]

Yes, fishless cycles are the way to go, but it's quite a new way of doing things and older fishkeepers sometimes don't fully understand the importance of these things.

If you have friends with tanks, they could offer some of their mature filter media (you only need a small piece) that will 'seed' your filter with the good bacteria, so your cycle will consist of growing the bacterial colony to a good size, rather than growing it from scratch, which would be much faster.

Much more helpful to you than their 'advice'! You stick to your guns and do things the way you want to

 

[doresy]

Ha Ha Ha Haaaa! Got to love 'friends'!

When I first joined these forums many (many, many) years ago I was an irritating little sod because I challenged everyone about this Cycling lark as I had a tank full of fish which were perfectly happy without all this Cycling nonsense!

I infuriated many by suggesting they put their chemistry sets away and just enjoy keeping fish.

I knew everything

WRONG!!!


All my fish died and the tank nearly became Ebay fodder.......

A big feast of humble pie later and an 8 week course of Fish-less Cycling (which I actually really enjoyed, the Cycling not the pie!) and my hobby spectacularly took off.

8 weeks of keeping water without fish seemed like an eternity but if you put that into context by understanding that I have kept fish for 12 years from that time and in that time lost only 3 fish you begin to realise the importance of understanding the method of doing things right from the start.

That's not to say that you cannot Cycle a tank WITH fish (and many still do) but it will cause stress to both those fish that you use and to yourself.

Forget ANY quick fix additives, forget carbon filter media. All you need is a tank, filter and heater and your chosen substrate. A bottle of ammonia solution, a bottle of de-chlorinator and a decent liquid water testing kit (API Master kit will do nicely).

Finally read the pinned post on Fish-less Cycling and have PATIENCE, the only short cut is to failure!!

Good luck my friend

 

[Ih3artfish]

Thank you all so much for your advice! It's so helpful hearing from experienced keepers!
I didn't realise fishless cycling was a relatively new thing, I don't think he's tried it himself. I'll stick to my guns and show him how well it works at the end (fingers crossed)!

I'm looking forward to doing the fishless cycling even if it does take a while, it's like a fun science experiment!

 

[Electric Warrior]

Yeah, definitely go fishless. I just recently got back into the hobby and did my first fishless cycle this year. It was not like the 80's when I was a kid with a tank, and just threw everything in and hoped for the best, but I am very glad I did it this way. Of all of the fish I added after my cycle, I haven't had one single fatality or illness in my tank, and this includes some pretty delicate species, that don't at all like new tanks. A far cry from having loads of fish go belly up all of the time when I was younger and not properly cycling a tank! Plus, I don't know how big your tank is, but I really wouldn't want to be doing massive water changes everyday on a 200L/55G tank ever single day for a month or two just to make sure that I can keep my fish alive in an uncycled tank.

 

[bmonki]

lmao Ih3artfish, 'a fun science experiment'... this made me giggle, you sound a lot like me

p.s. i had no idea about cycling, followed lfs advice bought chemicals, bought fish and lost loads after a very very lengthy fish in cycle (nearly 3 months) with advice from people on here we finally got it going. think we have lost 14 fish in total if i get another tank it'll be fishless all the way

 

[MrsM]

i wish id have read up on this fish keeping lark before shopping for a tank etc....i went on the advice of the lfs and suffered the loss of "a few" fish....if anyone asks me about fish keeping i send them to this forum